Happy to announce a new monthly podcast for Groovalizacion Radio! Groovalizacion has been my web radio of choice for a while now. With a refreshing diverse global playlist and generous attitude Groovalizacion is "a music lab, a meeting place and one of cultural exchange." Groovalizacion's doors "are wide open to the curious..." - the perfect place for a curious Lapkat!

Notes on the show

So beginning October, La Danza Poetica streams on Groovalizacion at 12:00 CET (21:00 AEST) on the first Sunday of the month, with the show also available as a podcast so you can listen at whim any time after the stream.

La Danza Poetica (literally, the poetic dance) is a one-hour tapestry woven of sound and story and song. In these hours I want to celebrate what unites us – the telling of stories, the singing of songs and poetry - and celebrate the specific beauty of our many unique cultures and languages, the best manifestations of the vibrant colours of humanity. I want to dance with the spoken voice, the common and uncommon language. I want to encourage myself and us all to be curious, open, and without prejudice. To listen, to hear, to be courageous in exploration, perhaps even to inspire positive change and awareness!

On the show I'm going to be featuring the best new spoken word from artists and storytellers around the world, alongside their predecessors, ancesters of the word, teachers and poets from as far back as recording can take us. Cantati, chanteurs, griots, MCs, stories old and new, lost and found treasures, mixed with music ranging from folk traditions to new cross-cultural collaborations. There will be beats, minimal beats made for slow dances, always united by passion and melody. I like to say it's language as music, and I hope to see you all dancing to poetry!

I made this first show (and write to you now) from country Italy - specifically, Umbria, the 'green heart'. This is my family's second home, and I've been staying here over the hot August nights (ciao, Neil) and now again over the gorgeous balmy October nights after a month in the north.

So I took as my starting point for this first show a famous Italian song "Bella Ciao" (which we sang on a very hot August night in the Piazza del Popolo on the rock of Orvieto, with maestro Goran Bregoviç, and which has been stuck in my head since!) This is a song of the partisans of Italy - the anti-fascist resistance movement of the early-twentieth century. It is a song that has traveled the world - you can find versions of this song in Arabic, Bosnian, Chinese, Croation, Danish, Engliosh, German Hungarian, Russian, Kurdish, Surbian, Spanish, even Tibetan. In this show we hear the song via the Gruppo popolare e solisti dell'Otrepo Pavese, we hear an instrumental by Franco Morone, and we close with my favourite version, by Argentinean artist Diego Moreno.

In this hour you will hear traditional stornelli from Giovanni Avantaggiato - an important touchstone for the Greek influenced music of the southern regions of Italy, and for the polyphonic singing of the style. (A word on stornelli/o - some say this word comes from the Occitan word for struggle, apparently due to its beginnings in improvisational poetic contests of 15th century Italy. That's right, the poetry slams of the 1400s!) I also feature artists celebrating, updating and making new fusions of traditional Italian folk music with modern sounds, including Novalia (Lazio), Tammurriata di Scafati, Mau Mau (Turin), Demetrio Stratos. Also recent music of resistance - Dupain writing in Occitan for the Marseilles workers' strikes, and Racionais MC's track featuring Marxist writer Carlos Marighella.

'Classic' poetry recordings from Arrigo Lora-Totino - a concrete and sound poet working since the mid 60s, who used early electronic technology to filter and break down the texts - and from Enzo Minarelli, a fascinating artist, writer, poet from Venezia. And new tracks from the S-Trip Poetry crew making melodic and powerful hip hop in Italian, Matteo Buratti working with Gue' Pequeno and Mary Jane. Also a collaboration between Opera Silenzio and Zanima and Dean Martin!

I'm looking forward to bringing the show every month, letting my curiosity free and sharing voices and stories. With thanks to the Groovalizacion crew especially DJ Mukambo for the welcome to these airwaves. Let's dance!

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I send out an email newsletter to subscribers once a month when a new La Danza Poetica podcast is released, with links to the show plus any new Spoken Word Artistry reviews, LAPKAT mixes or gig news if something special is going on.